


No Night Without

by Polly_Lynn



Series: So Much Like Stars [1]
Category: Castle
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fantasizing, Healing, Married Couple, Recovery, Romance, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 11:04:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8977045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: It’s harder tonight, and that’s good. The pleasant heaviness of her whole body—limbs, fingers, toes. It all just means she’s tired, and it’s a good thing, just as long as she doesn’t actually fall asleep yet.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Someone on Tumblr asked by PM for “Kate Beckett, one month after Crossfire.” Because Tumblr’s messaging system is ACTUALLY the worst, I have no idea who that was. Thank you, prompter. I’m sorry I can’t tag you, and I’m sorry this took so long.

There's no night without stars.

— Andre Norton

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a struggle to keep her eyes open. It’s a struggle every night, but this feels . . .   

_Worse_

She smiles at the word. A fierce flash of teeth. A dark reflection in the glass of the picture frame that’s propped, dead center, on the crowded bedside table. She smiles at how faint it is. How little power the idea has, even though it's stubborn and familiar. Even though she doubts it will ever fade entirely. 

She smiles, even as her lids flutter shut again, because it’s _not_ worse. It’s _harder_ tonight, and that’s good. The pleasant heaviness of her whole body—limbs, fingers, toes. It all just means she’s tired, and it’s a good thing, just as long as she doesn’t _actually_ fall asleep yet. 

_Yet_

She digs an elbow into the thin, mushy mattress. She hauls herself higher on to the pillows with an inelegant grunt. She feels sweat prickling between her shoulder blades. Twin sizzles of pain down her side, across her belly, but it goes. She breathes in, breathes out, and it goes. 

She takes inventory. She flexes her fingers and toes. Bends and extends what she can. She sinks into herself and listens to every sore, weary inch of her body. That’s good, too. The litany of complaints born of time spent on her feet. Time out of this godforsaken bed. It’s all good, or it will be. 

_It will be_

She smiles again as her head flops to the side. Toward the bedside table once more and the steady tick of her father’s watch. She can’t see the face of it. Can’t quite make out the faint glow of its hands, but she doesn’t mind. The steady tick is enough, so long as she can keep her eyes open a little while.

_Just a little while_

* * *

 

She’s drifting when the door hisses open. Drifting when she feels the warmth of his breath at her temple.

“Gotcha,” she mumbles as her fingers tangle in his shirt front. “Gotcha.” 

“Did you?” He traces an odd path along her cheek with the feather-light tip of one finger. Creases pressed into the skin by the scratchy hospital linens. “There’s some drool here.” He thumbs the corner of her mouth. Grimaces for show with light spilling in through a crack in the drape behind him. Makes her laugh. “Think _I_ got _you_ at long last, Detective.”

“Never happen.” She lets her head roll, dragging a smile across his palm. “Never,” she says again, though she knows it for a lie. The next night or the next night or the next, he really will catch her sleeping. She really won't catch him sneaking in. It's a lie, but she welcomes it. She tells it all over again as she lifts the corner of her blanket as high as she can. “Never, ever.” 

“Tautology." 

He lowers the bed rail and clambers in with her. He grunts and winces. There's nothing graceful about it. Nothing elegant, but she grins hard, because it's good. Because he's sore and tired, too, but he's _here._ Because she hasn't quite fallen over the edge into sleep, but she will. He will, and it's good. 

"Repetition," she grumbles as they tug the covers back and forth. Over her too-cold feet. Off his too-warm legs. "Not tautology."

"Mmm. And now semantics.” The purr of his voice makes her whole body go heavy and warm. Pliant as he scoops an arm behind her shoulders. As he reaches for her hip and their bodies jostle together until they're nose to nose. "The hallmark of a woman who knows she’s going down.

"Nuh uh." She scowls at herself. It's not exactly Shakespeare. Not exactly _tautology,_ but it's all she's got. That and a jaw-cracking yawn. "Not even."

"Not even," he agrees, dotting her nose with a kiss. "It's your night, so I guess you get to say." 

"My night," she murmurs. His fingers are in her hair. His chest rises and falls beneath her palm. She knows he's asking for something. Knows he's waiting, but she's _so_ tired, she can't think what it is. 

"Yours, Beckett." It’s a sing-song, soft in her ear. "Where? Where should we go?"

* * *

 

_Where. Where should we go?_

He means it as a lullaby. A good night kiss to send her off to sleep, but her mind snags on it. The weight of her body and a good _, good_ day dangles and twists in the space between sleep and waking. Between here and there, and she has something to tell him. It’s her night. 

“Dark,” she says. She struggles to open her eyes, but her lashes drag against his stubbled jaw, and it’s too much. Too much, and it doesn’t matter anyway. She feels his breath catch. His lips part and she tips her chin up to catch the corner of them just as they curve up and away. “Let’s go someplace dark.”

“Dark?” He pitches his voice low. The single word thrums between them, and she knows she has his attention. She feels powerful.

“Dark. June here, though.” She slides her palm along his ribs. Tickles the bare skin at the ragged hem of his t-shirt, just above soft flannel. “We’ll have to go south.” 

“South,” he repeats, stumbling a little over even just the one word. It’s satisfying. Thrilling in a languorous, all-the-time-in-the-world kind of way. “H- - - how far south?” 

She makes him wait a beat. Exactly one beat, then presses a broad smile into the soft of his neck. “New Zealand.” 

“New _Zealand_?” He says it too loud. _Far_ too loud, even though all this stealth is a charade. Even though he’s charmed every nurse on her ward and his own. Every resident and orderly and aide looks the other way, night after night, but it’s still too loud. “Isn’t that—” He nips at her fingertips. Pinches her hip for laughing, but she can't stop. “Isn’t that too _hobbity_?”  

“Not the way I’d do it.” The words roll out on a low, rich chuckle she almost doesn’t recognize as her own. It rises up from her belly on a breath so full and easy she’d forgotten what it was like. “Not at all.” 

“How would you do it?” he asks, scooting lower on the pillow. Skimming down her body to rearrange the two of them completely. To rest his head on her shoulder. “Your night, Beckett. Tell me.”  

“Aoraki,” she says, savoring the word. She hasn’t said it out loud before now. It’s lush and green and exotic on her tongue. Clear and beckoning in her mind’s eye  “Dark Sky Reserve.” 

“Again with the dark,” he mutters. He _grumbles,_ then yelps when she tweaks his ear. “Sorry,” he whispers, and he is. He blows a raspberry against the bare skin of her shoulder. He’s _kind of_ sorry. _“_ Tell me.”

She waits for him to come to rest. To settle into the picture of obedient attention before she goes on. Before she drops the sly declaration right in his ear. “We’ll have to hike.” 

“Hike?” He sounds alarmed. Excited. Exhausted at the very _thought_ , but it’s good. “Are we up for that?” His head pops up from her shoulder. “I mean . . . _I’m_ up for that. I am _totally up_.” He searches her face. “. . . but are we?” 

She tips her head to look at him. An awkward angle, but she wants to see him. Wants him to see her. 

It’s no pretty picture. Not by a long shot. 

His hair stands crazily on end. The stretched-out neck of his t-shirt gaps and sags where she’s tugged and twisted at it. Where she’s cried on it in darker days. Deep lines and dark circles tug at his eyes, visible even in the eerie light of the monitors overhead. Even in the slant of grim yellow from the hallway, and she wonders what he must see. As the world inside this tiny, awful room beeps and hisses all around them. As carts and gurneys and intercom voices thunder in the distance, she doesn’t know what he sees.   

She only knows what she _wants_ him to see. That it’s a good day and tomorrow will be better. 

“We are, Castle.” She cups the back of his head and brings it back to her shoulder. “We will be.” 

He believes her. His body goes soft and heavy against hers. His eyes close, and just like that, he’s half asleep. “Aoraki,” he murmurs, trying it out. He shivers with it. Sighs, and it’s pure contentment washing over her skin. “Dark.” 

“And quiet,” she promises. She’s half asleep, too. Just like that.

“Quiet is good.” His nose wrinkles as a string of sharp, staccato beeps sounds from somewhere above the bed. “Good.” 

Words twine between, back and forth for just a little while. He asks and she tells him, but really, they’re both half asleep. 

“There’ll be stars.” 

It’s the last thing she remembers. 

Almost the last. 

“Stars,” he echoes.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is rather lame, but I've been thinking about hospitals a lot and how they're the actual worst place to try to rest.


End file.
